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Pinterest Group Boards are Dying – so What Now?

For a long time, Pinterest group boards were all the rage – and they were the best possible tool for new users to get more exposure for their pins. But their effectiveness has been dwindling for some time now – and it isn’t looking too good…

A while ago, I left almost all of the group boards I was contributing to – because I simply wasn’t getting any traffic from them any more.

Firstly, Pinterest group boards face some serious challenges:

1. The last algorithm change on Pinterest resulted in less traffic being sent to group boards than before. Of course, very few people knows how the algo actually works, but a number of professional pinners noted the drop in group board traffic.

The algorithm change was probably brought about by the following problems:

2. A lack of activity on group boards – as more and more contributors are added to group boards, it stands to reason that some of them will be adding less popular pins. This drags the board’s repin rate down, which in turn affects the visibility of all pins on the board.

In addition to that, Pinterest disabled the ability of the board owner to remove individual pins – he or she now has to block a contributor in order to remove (all of) his or her pins. it isn’t possible to remove nonperforming pins.

3. Many group boards accumulated a mass of contributors – disproportionate to the following – which means that, relative to the number of pinners on the board, there are fewer people who will see each pin (on average).

4. Many group board contributors only use the group boards for pinning their own stuff – and as such, the ratio of contributors to daily contributions isn’t that great. This in turn affects the board’s ranking on Pinterest.

5. Most group boards aren’t set up to include mandatory pinning FROM the board (as part of the board rules) – which further reduces the repin rate. This has a significant impact, especially on boards with large numbers of contributors.

6. The bigger the group board becomes, and the more contributors it has, the more likely it becomes that some contributors will add irrelevant pins. On big boards, that becomes a problem – because policing the board takes more and more time (from the board owner). As a result, the group board’s topic focus is diluted, and that lets it slip down the Pinterest rankings as well.

Ok, so that’s a problem…

Here are the alternatives to Pinterest group boards:

1. Ok, this one is not ideal for introverts – but it is reasonably efficient, so it’s worth a mention: Facebook Pin Exchange groups. There are a number of Facebook groups where members engage with other Pinterest marketers (I guess mostly bloggers) who want exposure for their pins, and are willing to exchange repins to get it.

The downside is that you have little control over the quality and the relevance of the board it gets repinned to. While you will still get credit from Pinterest for the repin (and as such better visibility for your original pin), the actual traffic (and additional repins) from the exchanged pins are unlikely to be spectacular.

2. Create a group board that requires everybody to pin a specific number of pins for every one they add to the board. I created a board that requires 5 pins (to be pinned FROM the board) in return for adding one pin TO the board. Theoretically, that should create a high repin rate, as well as a high activity ratio, which in turn will result in better rankings for the board. The combination of the 5 repins and the better board rankings should result in muvh better traffic for the group board’s contributors.

But nobody took me up on it as yet – probably too much hassle.

3. Create your own (low quality) passive social media traffic machine (without any social following). You can do it for free – and once you have it running, the passive traffic and exposure can be substantial. I wrote a blog post about it –

Keep in mind, however, that this carries the same problem as exchanging repins on Facebook groups (repins to irrelevant boards). However, the fact that you can grow it to generate passive traffic, means that you will not be trading time for traffic. It’s an option to explore.

The most logical solution to the Pinterest group board problem is this:

4. Pin exchange tribes:

Tailwind originally created the concept of Tribes – communities where people exchanged repins on specific topics. The fact that tribes are topic-focused, and the fact that Tailwind is a paid tool, meant that you would get quality repins to relevant boards by people who are serous about what they do.

In principle, it was perfect. Unfortunately, the implementation left a lot to be desired.

But then…

BoardBooster came to the (tribes) table.

Instead of trying to copy the concept from Tailwind, Dennis Kashkin (founder of BoarBooster) started from scratch. What he came up with is a system that not only addresses all of the problems experienced by users of Tailwind tribes, but added some great improvements and features as well.